1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electric motor and more specifically to a disk drive apparatus including the motor.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a spindle motor is mounted to a disk drive apparatus such as a hard disk drive. A conventional brushless motor disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2007-295666 includes an attachment plate, a substantially cylindrical bushing, a thrust plate, a sleeve, and a shaft. The bushing is fitted to a fixing hole of the attachment plate. The thrust plate is fixed to the lower portion of the bushing. The sleeve is made of an oil-impregnated sintered material and is press-fitted to the inner circumferential surface of the bushing. The shaft is inserted into the sleeve. The shaft is supported in the radial direction by the sleeve and is supported in the thrust direction by a thrust washer arranged on the upper surface of the thrust plate.
A conventional motor for disk devices disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2003-153481 includes a bracket, a bearing as a ball bearing, a rotor, and a stator. The bracket is fixed to a chassis of a disk device. The bracket includes an inner cylinder portion extending in the axial direction. The bearing is fixed to the inside of the inner cylinder portion. A shaft portion of a rotor is rotatably supported by the bearing. A stator core of a stator is fixed to the outer circumferential surface of the inner cylinder portion. The inner circumferential portion of the stator core contacts the bottom surface portion of the bracket. Coils are formed in the outer circumferential portion of the stator core. The outer circumferential portion of the stator core is positioned axially above the inner circumferential portion thereof. Since the outer circumferential portion of the stator core is separated from the bottom surface portion, it is possible to prevent the coils and the bottom surface portion from interfering with each other.
In the event that a stator core is bent to have the outer edge portion of the stator core positioned higher than the inner edge portion thereof by a press working, the thickness of a slanted portion provided between the outer edge portion and the inner edge portion becomes smaller than the thickness of the outer edge portion and the inner edge portion. In a low-profile motor, there is a need to reduce the overall dimension of the stator core. The magnetic flux within the stator core gets saturated in the slanted portion.